Growing up in Southern California, I always sort of knew I would one day leave. For as long as I could remember, it had always been my dream to study in Europe. My mother is German and my father is American, so I have grown up with 2 passports and one foot in each of the respective cultures.

When I was 18, I left for a gap year in France, and save for a brief 6-month period and the occasional visit, I have yet to return from the European Union. I jumped around a bit while studying, Brussels, London, back to Brussels and now Luxembourg. I’ve now accepted that I will likely never move back to my home country, and I will say, for good reason.

Just as many young Europeans once had the dream to move to the USA, I have since changed my tune about the live-ability of the US. I frequently get asked “Do you think you will ever move back?” and I’m now confident with my answer; no.  Being far from my family is perhaps the only thing that makes me waver in that conviction, but even living thousands of miles away from my family seems a small concession to make in exchange for happiness, well-being, quality of life and security.

If you’re an American living abroad, an American contemplating leaving, an American who bleeds red, white, and blue or a European dreaming of the US, let me highlight a few of the main reasons why I’m never moving back.

Let’s start with the basics, healthcare. A tired argument I’m sure but I don’t think people much realise how dire the US healthcare system truly is in practice. The US has some world-renowned hospitals and healthcare facilities, proof it is understood that people will at some point need to be treated medically for one thing or another during their lives. But these facilities, treatments and doctors are only available to those who can afford them. While it’s true some Americans do have health insurance either through their employer or because they purchase their own policy, coverage varies greatly and in turn, so do premiums.

A few years ago, my father fell off his bike while on vacation in Colorado, fracturing his pelvis. Nothing major, a quick trip to the ER, some X-rays, a few pain meds, and a stay overnight while they waited to see if he would need surgery. He didn’t end up needing surgical intervention and was released the following morning.

My father is fortunate to have one of the country’s leading healthcare coverage providers through his employer. Most doctor’s visits, prescriptions and treatments are considered covered under his plan. After his insurance had been applied, he was left with a bill for $24,000 to be paid out of pocket. When he reached out to his insurance company regarding the charge, they said that he had incurred additional charges because he had not called in advance to clear the visit to the emergency room 24 hours prior. The fee was eventually waived, but my father was still left with a whopping $16,000 bill. Remember, this is with some of the US’ best healthcare coverage which would hold a monthly premium worth several thousand dollars if purchased privately.

I could ramble on about stories of people falling horribly into debt for medical expenses, or worse refusing to visit a doctor purely because they can’t afford the price of the consultation. This still holds true for people with coverage because even their $500 monthly premium won’t cover that trip to the doctor they so desperately need.

Moving on to basic benefits of working in the United States or rather the lack of benefits. While I can’t speak on behalf of every single employer in the United States, I can categorically say that paid leave for whatever reason is entirely insufficient across the board.

The European Union has a mandated minimum of 4 weeks paid vacation per year for full time employees. This does not include the 12 paid public holidays mandated through EU legislation. The US on the other hand has no federal mandate for paid vacation, which means that businesses decide how much paid leave they will offer to their employees. Again, this can vary, however the national average is 10 days.

Worse still are sick days. It’s not uncommon for employers to offer unpaid leave, if they offer any sick leave at all. So, what do American workers do when they are sick? Often, they are forced to use their limited vacation days, or they simply go to work when they are unwell.

Unsurprisingly, maternity, and paternity leave also follow the trend of ineptitude. Again, this varies depending on the employer, but most women are offered around 6 to 8 weeks. I don’t think I need to elaborate much on this one other than saying 6 weeks is a punishingly short amount of time for a woman to recover from childbirth and be expected to return to the workforce. Paternity leave is of course, if allowed equally insufficient. For those of you wondering, most European countries offer 6 months leave for new mothers with some offering up to several years, with little change in pay.

Before moving on from working conditions, there is one last aspect of US employment that needs to be addressed: the minimum wage. At the time of writing, the Luxembourgish minimum wage for unskilled workers is €2,256 per month or roughly €14 an hour. Luxembourg has one of if not the highest minimum wages in Europe, but this fact only strengthens my argument further about why I would be remiss to consider ever moving back. Even in Europe, unskilled and uneducated workers are still given a salary that they can live on. This is paramount and something that is entirely missing in the US.  Remember while €2,256 may not seem like a lot, healthcare and basic social benefits are offered in most European countries so the unskilled wage is sufficient to live on without the fear of additional expenses if something goes wrong.

The US Federal minimum wage is set at $7.25 (€6.26) an hour, that’s less than $300 (€263) a week. Some states have higher minimum wages but on a federal level, this is the minimum. Factor in that basic living costs, rent and healthcare will need to be taken out of this pitiful sum and tell me how anyone can think this is an acceptable amount to pay individuals doing any sort of paid labour.

The logical way to avoid this would naturally be to get an education and work in the subsequent field of your educational background. However, herein lies yet another huge problem in the United States, access to quality and affordable education.

Much like healthcare institutions, the US boasts many of the world’s most esteemed higher educational institutions. Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern, you get the gist. In the same grain as healthcare, higher education is available to those who can afford it.

Most state-funded universities start at around $20,000 a year purely for tuition. This means books, housing, food, and supplies are not included in this fee. Additionally, if you choose to go to a state school in a state where you aren’t from, you get hit with something called out of state tuition which of course costs more. Private universities charge whatever they please and usually charge anywhere from 50 to 60 thousand dollars a year. The majority of American students are forced to take out loans which cripple them for years to come, paying off hundreds of thousands of dollars in school loans that wrack up enormous amounts of interest. To put this into perspective, it was more affordable for me to study and live in Europe for 6 years than it was for me to stay at home and study at a California-state university.

The prices may be high, but the quality is at times questionable. I have many American friends who confessed they were simply pushed through their degrees. This is of course not the case for all but having studied in Europe I know many of my American peers worked a fraction of as hard as we did for the same degree. The quality and rigour of what is expected of American students is often significantly inferior to those of European institutions and comes at a much higher cost. As a result, the general population suffers, as the collective level of knowledge cannot compete with the rest of the developed world.

Higher education in the US is not the only education that isn’t up to par. The American public education system is grossly underfunded, undervalued and is being decided more and more by political and religious beliefs.

A lack of access to quality and affordable education is proof that the United States possesses no intrinsic drive to evolve and become better as a society.  How could I bring myself to live and potentially raise children in an environment that doesn’t value education and societal development?

It’s important to remember that no country is perfect, I could also write a far-less exhaustive piece on the shortcomings of Luxembourg, however I think most of the civilised world’s issues pale in comparison to the systemic issues ingrained within the United States.

For those of you readers that have stuck around to the end of this piece, I hope you understand I’ve only begun to scratch the service. In fact, I’m sure most readers are aware of the issues I’ve raised above. I may, in future, continue to air my grievances that I have with my home country but that’s for another time. For now, I’m left to marinate in the acceptance that the country I once called home is a place I am likely never to return.